


Hold Tight to our Sovereign's Hand

by ViridianJane



Series: The Great War [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Letters, M/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViridianJane/pseuds/ViridianJane
Summary: Merlin is an artist in Zurich during World War I, and he writes his missing lover a letter.





	Hold Tight to our Sovereign's Hand

November 22, 1916.

 

My dearest Gwaine,

 

The war has been going on for two years now. I’m sure that you know this, wherever you are, but sometimes I need reminding for myself. The people here are calling it the greatest war that’s ever happened, and I have no trouble believing them; neither do I doubt the claim of it being the ‘dirty war’ — yet still, I can hear the cries of “ _ for God, King and Country!” _ and my heart continues to break for the men and the women and the children. I think we are being led to the gates of Hell itself, my love, holding tight to our sovereign’s hand. 

 

Fathers, sons, brothers and husbands — how can the people so readily give them all away? The papers — the propaganda — spin yarns so outlandish and cruel, as if trying to fool us into believing that we’re fighting monsters and not fellow human beings. 

 

I’ve received news that my brother, Arthur, has died. At the front. I can see him, in my mind’s eye; he’s beautiful, shining gold and brilliant like the sun. In life, he was good and kind and brave. A true leader of men. In death, he was left to rot in no man’s land. There was no one who would fetch his body for me. And now there is this anger inside of me; a rage that burns under my skin and has bile rising in my throat, knowing that he was a victim of his own class, forced to live in the filth and mud and squalor of the trenches while beer-bellied generals and politicians argue and point their fingers at each other from the safe distance of across a dinner table, feasting on an eight course meal.

 

I miss him, dearly. But “ _ it was to be expected” _ , they tell me. Not very many men are coming home from the war alive.

 

And so here I am in Zurich; I’ve escaped Britain and the madness there. As I’d hoped, it’s become a refuge. Switzerland is neutral territory, and I’ve left the terror behind, for a time. Only a month, and I think I’ve found my purpose here, or at least something that makes me feel a little less helpless, something that soothes the ache ever so slightly. In the Cabaret Voltaire we work together — or, cooperate, mostly — and the artists there share my frustrations. They understand my fear and my anxiety and my anger. They’ve given it a name and they’ve given it  _ life _ . 

 

Dada is unlike anything I’ve seen before — and perhaps that is the point, and never have I seen traditional so well integrated with something new and abstract. The name itself, even, is art: to choose something so arbitrary, something so infuriating in its nonsense, moves our art forward. We speak in gibberish meant to enrage the Bourgeoisie, who are undeniably the ones responsible for this war: through elections they’ve voted in our politicians, and they’ve welcomed us into an everlasting night, and still the middles classes have the time to enjoy the frivolous past-times of Fragonard? To destroy art is to destroy the Bourgeoisie, and we will do it one  _ Karawane  _ at a time. 

 

But it is not so easy, for us Dadaists. Even for Duchamp, people looked the other way, telling him his art doesn’t “fit”. But on whose authority? Who decides that art is not art? I feel like we are all pieces left unfinished by Duchamp, because that is what we are: an unfinished, unending fight to try and overcome and break the rules imposed on us. But for now, we don’t fit. Not in society, and surely not in the Cabaret Voltaire. There is no agreement here,  there is no compromise or peace. There is tension and chaos and anger. We are against the war, but sometimes I believe that we’ve brought it into this very room.

 

Tonight was one of those times. The meetings to decide what we are going to do for our performances are growing more disaried, more strained than ever before. More and more they are becoming an excuse to argue with one another, and not an opportunity to bond over shared passions. Hans grows ever more determined to create political art. He believes that we must go even further in making our art controversial; to him, war is not the answer, but revolution. To me, that is simply trading one propaganda for another. Marcel and his brother want more concerts and drums and masks — apparently it inspires their paintings. But Emmy and Hugo are worried that too many performance pieces will make us lose what little audience we have, and already we do not make a large sum of money doing what we do. There needs to be more traditional performance mixed in, which led to an argument about how Emmy and Hugo are stealing the show with her Cabaret singing and Hugo’s over-performed  _ Karawane _ , and I let them have their arguments. 

My own suggestion was well received.  _ Question and Answer _ , I’ll call it, because in its simplest form, that’s what it will be. I will stand on our stage and I will answer the questions asked of me. But just like what our governments are doing to the people, I will do to our audience: none of my answers will relate to the question. If they ask of birds, I will speak of stones. If they ask of war, I will speak of my Arthur, and I hope that it will leave them frustrated and itching with hot anger — they will think to themselves, why are they here, in Cabaret Voltaire? When they could be on the front, or volunteering with the Red Cross or out throwing feathers on the men who came back so terrified they cannot bear the company of their own shadow? 

In the name of art and in the name of war, I will speak in gibberish until they understand it fluently, and I can only hope that by that time it is not too late.

 

And I know that this is not something you know or understand, Gwaine, but in your absence it gives me energy to breathe, to exist. 

 

I cannot remember what the world was like, before the war, when we were all together and you were safe with me; but I can’t help but think that perhaps it frightens me more that I cannot imagine the world  _ after  _ the war.

 

I miss you, so very much. But I cannot even send this letter to tell you because I have no idea where you might be, and I can only hope that your wandering has kept you safe from the war, and that one day you’ll find your way safely back to me. 

 

With all my love,

 

Merlin 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this was actually an assignment I had for class -- It was just so much easier to get it done if I wrote it as if it were a fic, which made the whole process so much more fun! Thank you for reading :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [To End All Wars (the Hold Tight Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810655) by [EachPeachPearPlum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EachPeachPearPlum/pseuds/EachPeachPearPlum)




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